


Tread Softly

by tahirire



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Comment Fic, Community: sharp_teeth, Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-07
Updated: 2010-03-07
Packaged: 2017-10-26 07:24:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/280345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tahirire/pseuds/tahirire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Sam pulled Dean out of Hell right in the middle of Dean torturing a soul. Dean can't quite understand, and he thinks that he's still in Hell. Of course he tries to make the demons understand that they can't use his little brother like that against him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tread Softly

_He lit the match and dropped it into the sulfur, throat dry and hands trembling in anxious anticipation and fear._

He flinches, jerking his head to the side, too quick. His tongue is swollen and his mouth tastes like iron, but it feels like gauze. It's dark. He blinks once, twice. The haze at the edge of his vision turns white, then black, then white again. He moans. He can't move his arms.

 _There was a flash, yellow and blue flames, and then darkness. Weird pressure touched the air, the fabric of the universe flickered around him. He held his breath, not daring to hope, not daring to despair. He heard the rustle behind him, footsteps, silent like a cat toying with its prey. He froze, the name caught on his lips a whisper. "Dean?"_

The world reorients. His hands are tied behind his head, stretching his shoulders uncomfortably. He fights to raise his head. It's heavy. He's on his knees, he realizes. His heart gives a startled _thump_ against his aching ribs. He's on his knees, and that only means one thing - in this world, or any other.

 _When he turned, the thing in front of him couldn't be his brother. It couldn't be Dean, not the way he stood as though the curved blades in his hands were a part of him, not the way the new crisscrossed paths of white scars gleamed only slightly less than the flecks of blood running down his face, across his chest, onto his hands. It couldn't be Dean, because Dean's eyes wouldn't narrow at the sight of him, they wouldn't project hatred strong enough to send chills down his spine._

 _It couldn't be Dean, because Dean could never move that fast._

"Dean," he sighs, eyes closed tight against the flashing lights in his skull, "Dean, man, come on, it's me. It's _me_." He pulls his head up and leans back against the post he's bound to, tries to will his brother to _believe_. He can feel Dean's eyes, predator's eyes, watching him.

Hardly a whisper of sound, and then he smells it - the reek of brimstone and ash, the tang of blood and entrails. Dean's breath ghosts over his face, Dean's knife kisses the curve of his jaw. He opens his eyes to see Dean's eyes, staring into his own, so close.

They flash with anger just an instant, and then flare out, going deathly cold. Dean's voice, so missed, flows over him.

"That was your first mistake."

 _The thing that killed him was definitely Dean, because demons don't say they're sorry._   



End file.
